Her vision of Southern womanhood, it should be said, is a particular kind of white womanhood. What it does seem to be, and effusively so, is genuine, with a chatty narrative and a fair amount of lighthearted self-deprecation. Her tone is welcoming and accessible, and her recipes–a cornbread chili pie, a Mud Trifle with Oreos, spiced pecans for cocktail hour–are the kind that even a short-on-time home cook could imagine pulling together. But it’s an awfully inviting world to spend time in. It’s a stylized fantasy, of course: a beautifully attired blonde with three towheaded kids and well-groomed dogs, smiling ear-to-ear on sunny Southern estates. The best menu for a bluegrass-fueled “Full Moon Midnight BBQ Barn Party.” How to host a book club, a Derby party, a summer porch picnic. How to properly set hair curlers (and why it’s perfectly acceptable to wear them out of the house). Rather, it’s a cheery, color-filled romp through tales of her upbringing and traditions she keeps alive today.
(Suffragettes, she reminds us, recognized each other by their red lipstick.) And it would be hard to deny either the, well, “beautiful presentation” or the internal dynamism of Witherspoon herself, who, in addition to her well-known career onscreen, is a film and television producer, founder of a Southern-inspired clothing line, and advocate for international women’s and children’s advocacy groups.īut Whiskey in a Teacup is no hard-hitting memoir. It’s an appealing image, one in which femininity and feminism don’t need to be in conflict.
“Beautiful and presented well on the outside… fierce and very strong on the inside.” The book’s title comes from a Dorothea maxim: “Southern women are like whiskey in a teacup,” she would say. (Never has a more impassioned defense of monograms appeared in print.) Witherspoon’s view of Southern traditions is nostalgic–a bit old-fashioned even–though she makes a fair case that true traditions are timeless. Growing up very close to her grandparents as well as her own mother and father, Whiskey in a Teacup is in large part a tribute to her grandmother, Dorothea, whose influence is evident on every page. And one of her three dogs is named Nashville.īorn in New Orleans and raised in Nashville, Witherspoon is as Southern as her June Carter Cash accent would have you believe. Here’s the first thing you need to know about Reese Witherspoon’s devotion to the South, even before reading Whiskey in a Teacup: Her youngest son is named Tennessee.
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